Guild Renown Changes

[Chaos000]

If you assume that all DDO guilds will have a normal distribution of account activity, the old system was very fair and well designed. The problem was DDO guilds do not have a normal activity distribution and guilds quickly started optimizing their size for the renown system.

Agreed. Path of least resistance. If you have 2 daily gamers, 2 weekend warriors... the net benefit of adding 2 at least once a month casual players in the old system is to take advantage of the maximum renown bonus while minimizing the decay by closing recruitment.

If a daily gamer wanted to join this guild of six, they would have a higher incentive to boot a casual player and replace them as opposed to adding another member.

Monitoring the activity of 6 is easier to achieve than the activity of 20, raising the standard to 20 for the maximum renown benefit of x10? A guild of 6 will still net a higher renown bonus than they currently have so they will benefit as well even if they do not choose to increase in numbers.

[Tshober]

This is really pretty simple in concept. Continue to have renown decay that doesn't doesn't account for guild size. Keep the renown/level the same.

Modify the small guild bonus to a guild renown modifier that applies to all guilds. The new guild bonus will choose an active account size as nominal and any guild at that size will have zero modifier. As your active account size moves away from the standard, you get either a greater or lesser guild size modifier.

The psychological aspects of this may be a little rough on some guild sizes, since small guild will be getting some very large bonuses to make their renown/account equal to large guilds. To make this work fairly, a small guild of 20 players would receive 10x the renown per award that a largue guild of 200 players got.

I assume that this is why the original system worked the way it did. It looks ridiculous to have a small guild bonus of 10x. To prevent that they scaled renown up by account. If you assume that all DDO guilds will have a normal distribution of account activity, the old system was very fair and well designed. The problem was DDO guilds do not have a normal activity distribution and guilds quickly started optimizing their size for the renown system.

It gets better, a one-man guild made up solely of Joe Solo and his alts, would be getting 20 times as much renown bonus as the small 20 account guild and 200 times a typical large guild. It is silly to try to make all guilds level up at the same speed. For one reason, when a one-man guild can level just as fast as 100 people all working together, guilds themselves become meaningless. You are just as well off attaching the levels and their perks to individual players, rather than to guilds. In fact, that would be cleaner and easier.

It is not logical at all that 1 person working alone should be able to accomplish as much as quickly as 100 people all working together. That is giving in to the same flawed logic of the old decay system. A 1-man guild and a 100-man guild are NOT the same and should not be treated the same. The 100-man guild brings far more of everything you can possibly name to the game than a 1 man guild does. More players, more partys, more renown, more questing, more raids, more VIP subscriptions, more DDO store sales, more social interaction, more everything! To ignore that huge difference and treat them completely equally is just not logical or even reasonable.

I do believe that tiny guilds should be a viable choice and should be able to level up eventually, but to put them on a completely equal footing with guilds that have far more players in them does a disservice to all the players in the larger guilds. It essentialy says to players in large guilds, "your contributions are worth 100 times less than those of Joe Solo in his 1-man guild". That is just wrong. ALL players' contributions should count roughly equally. If I loot a legendry victory, I should get close to the same amount of renown regardless of what size guild I am in and all of that renown should count for my guild. To do it any other way says that my contributions are not as valuable, somehow, as those made by someone in a tiny or solo guild.

A guild leveling system should be comparing guilds, not players. The total renown earned by each guild should be what is compared. When you start dividing renown by number of players or multiplying it by the inverse of number of players, you are no longer comparing guilds, you are comparing players.

[Gremmlynn]

This is really pretty simple in concept. Continue to have renown decay that doesn't doesn't account for guild size. Keep the renown/level the same.

Good up to here.

Modify the small guild bonus to a guild renown modifier that applies to all guilds. The new guild bonus will choose an active account size as nominal and any guild at that size will have zero modifier. As your active account size moves away from the standard, you get either a greater or lesser guild size modifier.

Okay, how does offering guilds a big modifier to their best earners for dumping their lesser earners convince them not to siply dump their lesser earners?

The psychological aspects of this may be a little rough on some guild sizes, since small guild will be getting some very large bonuses to make their renown/account equal to large guilds. To make this work fairly, a small guild of 20 players would receive 10x the renown per award that a largue guild of 200 players got.

Yes the psychological effect of every casual player never being able to join a guild with a functional active core would be pretty rough if those that are still around weren't already used to it.

I assume that this is why the original system worked the way it did. It looks ridiculous to have a small guild bonus of 10x. To prevent that they scaled renown up by account. If you assume that all DDO guilds will have a normal distribution of account activity, the old system was very fair and well designed. The problem was DDO guilds do not have a normal activity distribution and guilds quickly started optimizing their size for the renown system.

Distribution and relative value are both problems.

To be blunt, even without the guild leveling system, active reliable players bring more value to a guild than casual, play when circumstance and whim coincide, players. It only takes a few for there to be enough on a regular basis to play the game. Any system that relies on relative value rather than total value makes it a no brainer to multiply the value of your already most valuable players, who happen to also be the only players you really need for the guild to perform it's original function, by getting rid of the less valuable players who you really don't need anyway.

[Tshober]

I see no reason why people in small guilds should suffer a large decay penalty simply for being in a small guild.

On this part we agree. Decay is bad and I would like to see it go away completely.

[Gremmlynn]

Nobody from small guilds suggested small guilds should have an easier time leveling up.

The only thing debated here is the decay penalty. I see no reason why people in small guilds should suffer a large decay penalty simply for being in a small guild.

Except all guilds now suffer the same decay penalty. If you meant; why should players in small guilds be responsible for covering a larger decay penalty? Frankly, I don't know why any of us should be paying a decay penalty, at least below level 100.

Personally I could live with a system that only allowed "good" guilds to maintain 100 with the rest of us wannabes always getting stuck at 99. That would seem to fulfill the competition part of the system without annoying the 90%+ (personal estimation) of us who see the whole thing as getting in the way of what our guilds are about more than anything else.

[Hendrik]

Nobody from small guilds suggested small guilds should have an easier time leveling up.

The only thing debated here is the decay penalty. I see no reason why people in small guilds should suffer a large decay penalty simply for being in a small guild.

You do realize that there has always been a size bonus to decay, right?

Was Account size +10, now it is a flat 20. The ONLY Guilds that have any larger amount of decay are those with a size smaller then 9. And that 'extra' decay is as LITTLE as TWO POINTS, depending on size. Yes, two whole points. You get more then that for a kill. If you think as little as two points is a large penalty then do not ever increase your membership.

[Hendrik]

On this part we agree. Decay is bad and I would like to see it go away completely.

Yep.

Scrap decay, guild size bonus, and put every guild on equal footing. Your level is a direct representation of how active your members are, no matter the size.

[moiinwar]

I already posted this idea to this thread but I'll post it again and try to be more specific this time so that someone other than me could have chance to understand what am I trying to say.

My goals are to make all guild sizes fair changes to get to high levels, make decay fair for everybody and prevent guilds from kicking players that doesn't gain enough renown.

In current system guild size modifiers to guild renown seems like they are just random numbers that are not based on any kind of mathematical system. I think that these bonuses should be constructed by making a function for how much renown is needed per player to gain level 100 with guild size as variable. I found that this kind of function seems to be good:

Renown/player = 50,000,000*0.04/((1+log10(Size)/2)^log10(Size))

This function would cause guild size modifiers to look like this:

Size Modifier
1 2400 %
2 1204 %
3 823 %
4 632 %
5 517 %
6 438 %
7 381 %
8 338 %
9 303 %
10 275 %
12 232 %
14 200 %
16 176 %
20 140 %
30 89 %
40 60 %
50 42 %
100 0 %
200 -27 %

Full list can be constructed with this function: (50,000,000/(Renown/player*Size)-1)*100%

Amounts of renown needed per player to gain levels have to be higher in small guilds because it can be assumed that people in small guild have more motivation to gather renown than people in larger guilds.

To avoid members from being kicked out from guilds there could be a possibility to make them noncontributing instead. Making member (account) noncontributing would mean that he would not increase guild size and would not gain renown. This way a member could be a part of a guild without causing any penalties to the guild. Number of noncontributing account slots would need to be limited to avoid abuse, for example 1 noncontributing / 1 contributing would be a good ratio. Also making member noncontributing would have to be counted as recent departure but not cause renown loss (again to avoid abuse).

Decay should be based on guild level and guild size (not counting noncontributing accounts) but the amount of renown items needed / player should not be function of guild size. Example: If member of size 50 guild needs to get 1 legendary victory per day to cover the decay he causes then a member of a size 11 guild with same level as size 50 guild also needs to get 1 legendary to cover his decay. In the old system member of size 50 guild needed to get more renown than member of size 11 and in the current system member of size 11 needs to get more. Complete removal of decay is also an option but I don't think that people in turbine likes that option (hasn't happened already and would cut renown potion sales). Good amount of decay/account would be the same amount that size 11 guilds had in the previous system.

Here is some extra stuff that would make this system even better but are not necessary to make it work:

Extra noncontributing slots in DDO store. To avoid situations where people would like to invite their friend to the guild but doesn't have any slots left. I would love to have a system where a group of friends could be together without having to pay for it but I can't make one.

Effective guild renown meters for guild leaders. It is hard to tell how much renown different accounts have contributed for the guild in the current system. So it would be nice to have a way to know how much renown account has gained reduced by how much has it lost due to decay.

Automatic noncontribution management. System which would automatically make a member noncontributing if he has caused guild to lose certain amount of renown and it would also take members out of noncontrubuting slots if they start to be more active. Parameters could be set by guild leader.

Quicker inactivity. System could make members inactive quicker so that taking a break from playing would cause less "damage" to renown.

Option to recruit player as noncontributing. If leader knows that a player that he is going to recruit is going to be made noncontributing then it shouldn't be added to recent departure.

[Gremmlynn]

I already posted this idea to this thread but I'll post it again and try to be more specific this time so that someone other than me could have chance to understand what am I trying to say.

My goals are to make all guild sizes fair changes to get to high levels, make decay fair for everybody and prevent guilds from kicking players that doesn't gain enough renown.

In current system guild size modifiers to guild renown seems like they are just random numbers that are not based on any kind of mathematical system. I think that these bonuses should be constructed by making a function for how much renown is needed per player to gain level 100 with guild size as variable. I found that this kind of function seems to be good:

Renown/player = 50,000,000*0.04/((1+log10(Size)/2)^log10(Size))

This function would cause guild size modifiers to look like this:

Size Modifier
1 2400 %
2 1204 %
3 823 %
4 632 %
5 517 %
6 438 %
7 381 %
8 338 %
9 303 %
10 275 %
12 232 %
14 200 %
16 176 %
20 140 %
30 89 %
40 60 %
50 42 %
100 0 %
200 -27 %

Full list can be constructed with this function: (50,000,000/(Renown/player*Size)-1)*100%

Amounts of renown needed per player have to be higher in small guilds because it can be assumed that people in small guild have more motivation to gather renown than people in larger guilds.

To avoid members from being kicked out from guilds there could be a possibility to make them noncontributing instead. Making member (account) noncontributing would mean that he would not increase guild size and would not gain renown. This way a member could be a part of a guild without causing any penalties to the guild. Number of noncontributing account slots would need to be limited to avoid abuse, for example 1 noncontributing / 1 contributing would be a good ratio. Also making member noncontributing would have to be counted as recent departure but not cause renown loss (again to avoid abuse).

Decay should be based on guild level and guild size (not counting noncontributing accounts) but the amount of renown needed / player should not be function of guild size. Example: If member of size 50 guild needs to get 1 legendary victory per day to cover the decay he causes then a member of a size 11 guild with same level as size 50 guild also needs to get 1 legendary to cover his decay. In the old system member of size 50 guild needed to get more renown than member of size 11 and in the current system member of size 11 needs to get more. Complete removal of decay is also an option but I don't think that people in turbine likes that option (hasn't happened already and would cut renown potion sales). Good amount of decay/account would be the same amount that size 11 guilds had in the previous system.

Here is some extra stuff that would make this system even better but are not necessary to make it work:

Extra noncontributing slots in DDO store. To avoid situations where people would like to invite their friend to the guild but doesn't have any slots left. I would love to have a system where a group of friends could be together without having to pay for it but I can't make one.

Effective guild renown meters for guild leaders. It is hard to tell how much renown different accounts have contributed for the guild in the current system. So it would be nice to have a way to know how much renown account has gained reduced by how much has it lost due to decay.

Automatic noncontribution management. System which would automatically make a member noncontributing if he has caused guild to lose certain amount of renown and it would also take members out of noncontrubuting slots if they start to be more active. Parameters could be set by guild leader.

Quicker inactivity. System could make members inactive quicker so that taking a break from playing would cause less "damage" to renown.

Option to recruit player as noncontributing. If leader knows that a player that he is going to recruit is going to be made noncontributing then it shouldn't be added to recent departure.

That looks like a lot of work for the devs when the players are just going to maximize the gains of their best earners by kicking out the lower earners for a better bonus. The only system that will work for less active players is one where, no matter how little renown they earn, the guild is always better off having them than not having them. Guild leaders are not likely to feel they are better off by having to do a lot of micromanaging, though I'm sure most would be a big fan of the contribution tool to make it easy to calculate which members they would be numerically better off to get rid of.

[vetchjones]

Greetings! We are putting forth modifications currently trying out some temporary adjustments to the Guild <snip>
There are some balance Pros and Cons to this method, but we’d like guilds to give us feedback about their experiences using the new settings this week. If players like the settings, or feel it is workable with minor tweaks, then we are ready to keep them! If players find the changes make matters worse, then we are scheduled to revert them. So this week, we encourage guild leaders/members to use this thread to give us feedback about how the changes are impacting your guild leveling dynamics. Important feedback for us is points where frustration has eased (or increased). Thanks for your participation as we work to improve our guild leveling system!

The changes have been a welcome relief for our casual guild. Renown decay was horrid, making it impossible to level. I was beginning to feel we fought a hopeless battle, trying to hold level 60 without punishing our members. We offer a safe place for casual and new players to call 'home'.

Seeing the guild begin to gain ground again is call for a celebration. We can keep inviting and helping and teaching new DDO players what we know and not punish people for taking a week away from the game.

In other words, I love the new changes.

[Tshober]

I already posted this idea to this thread but I'll post it again and try to be more specific this time so that someone other than me could have chance to understand what am I trying to say.

My goals are to make all guild sizes fair changes to get to high levels, make decay fair for everybody and prevent guilds from kicking players that doesn't gain enough renown.

In current system guild size modifiers to guild renown seems like they are just random numbers that are not based on any kind of mathematical system. I think that these bonuses should be constructed by making a function for how much renown is needed per player to gain level 100 with guild size as variable. I found that this kind of function seems to be good:

Renown/player = 50,000,000*0.04/((1+log10(Size)/2)^log10(Size))

This function would cause guild size modifiers to look like this:

Size Modifier
1 2400 %
2 1204 %
3 823 %
4 632 %
5 517 %
6 438 %
7 381 %
8 338 %
9 303 %
10 275 %
12 232 %
14 200 %
16 176 %
20 140 %
30 89 %
40 60 %
50 42 %
100 0 %
200 -27 %

Full list can be constructed with this function: (50,000,000/(Renown/player*Size)-1)*100%

Amounts of renown needed per player have to be higher in small guilds because it can be assumed that people in small guild have more motivation to gather renown than people in larger guilds.

To avoid members from being kicked out from guilds there could be a possibility to make them noncontributing instead. Making member (account) noncontributing would mean that he would not increase guild size and would not gain renown. This way a member could be a part of a guild without causing any penalties to the guild. Number of noncontributing account slots would need to be limited to avoid abuse, for example 1 noncontributing / 1 contributing would be a good ratio. Also making member noncontributing would have to be counted as recent departure but not cause renown loss (again to avoid abuse).

Decay should be based on guild level and guild size (not counting noncontributing accounts) but the amount of renown needed / player should not be function of guild size. Example: If member of size 50 guild needs to get 1 legendary victory per day to cover the decay he causes then a member of a size 11 guild with same level as size 50 guild also needs to get 1 legendary to cover his decay. In the old system member of size 50 guild needed to get more renown than member of size 11 and in the current system member of size 11 needs to get more. Complete removal of decay is also an option but I don't think that people in turbine likes that option (hasn't happened already and would cut renown potion sales). Good amount of decay/account would be the same amount that size 11 guilds had in the previous system.

Here is some extra stuff that would make this system even better but are not necessary to make it work:

Extra noncontributing slots in DDO store. To avoid situations where people would like to invite their friend to the guild but doesn't have any slots left. I would love to have a system where a group of friends could be together without having to pay for it but I can't make one.

Effective guild renown meters for guild leaders. It is hard to tell how much renown different accounts have contributed for the guild in the current system. So it would be nice to have a way to know how much renown account has gained reduced by how much has it lost due to decay.

Automatic noncontribution management. System which would automatically make a member noncontributing if he has caused guild to lose certain amount of renown and it would also take members out of noncontrubuting slots if they start to be more active. Parameters could be set by guild leader.

Quicker inactivity. System could make members inactive quicker so that taking a break from playing would cause less "damage" to renown.

Option to recruit player as noncontributing. If leader knows that a player that he is going to recruit is going to be made noncontributing then it shouldn't be added to recent departure.

To me, this is an awful system. I think it might actually be more anti-social than the old decay system, which is quite an achievment. Anything that rewards 1-man guilds more than any other guild size is just not going to end well. I forsee massive kick fests.

[Thayion516]

Im at work so i can not check. Did the new decay formula remain after U16? If it did, that is a sign of things to come IMO. Turbine has a habit of keeping what they think is WAI thru updates then announcing that feature is WAI later.

[Tshober]

Im at work so i can not check. Did the new decay formula remain after U16? If it did, that is a sign of things to come IMO. Turbine has a habit of keeping what they think is WAI thru updates then announcing that feature is WAI later.

They also have a habit of not doing decay on server outage days. We have not had a decay hit today.

[Robinhood1982]

I am the guild leader for The House of MANGAR on the Argonessan server and I would like to say I am actually seeing level advancement again in my guild. My guild members are happy to see advancement again and if you keep this new system I can actually start bringing in more people to the guild without worry to level loss. Good job on this system and I hope you keep it in effect.

Teliif

[moiinwar]

To me, this is an awful system. I think it might actually be more anti-social than the old decay system, which is quite an achievment. Anything that rewards 1-man guilds more than any other guild size is just not going to end well. I forsee massive kick fests.

Perhaps the amount of renown items one account has to collect should be somewhat higher in small guilds to make system better for large guilds but should still be based on guild size and level. What I was trying to avoid by setting needed renown items per account to constant was that in the old system big guilds had to collect more renown items per account to cover the decay than small guilds. Also in the current system small guild renown decay / account values are too much higher than what large guilds have and I don't like that either.

Also that renown / player function I gave is just an example the idea around it is the important part.

[Bronko]

Yes, sorry for being confusing - the penalty part that I referred to was them taking a percentage of their earned renown with them. They'll still count as a recently removed member.

This is not correct. Either that or it is not working as intended.

Today I removed a player who's characters had been inactive between 6 and 12 months. When I removed the last player from that account we were hit with a one-time renown loss consistent with the 25% loss from removing a complete account against their will.

This is a major problem with the renown system. Nobody wants a roster full of accounts that have been inactive for months, or even years, but nobody wants to take a big renown hit for removing those characters either. Ever since Update 5 I had been leaving those inactive accounts sit on our roster as opposed to taking the renown penalty for removing them.

Based on what you wrote before I bit the bullet and removed those "inactive" accounts. Now we have dropped a whole level.

This is an unfair penalty to guilds of all sizes because they lose a percentage of the renown that account previously earned which is significantly more than the actual value of that renown due to decay. If the renown loss from removing an account was calculated on the present worth of that earned renown (i.e. factored for the decay over the same period it was earned) then this wouldn't be a problem.

[Tshober]

This is not correct. Either that or it is not working as intended.

Today I removed a player who's characters had been inactive between 6 and 12 months. When I removed the last player from that account we were hit with a one-time renown loss consistent with the 25% loss from removing a complete account against their will.

This is a major problem with the renown system. Nobody wants a roster full of accounts that have been inactive for months, or even years, but nobody wants to take a big renown hit for removing those characters either. Ever since Update 5 I had been leaving those inactive accounts sit on our roster as opposed to taking the renown penalty for removing them.

Based on what you wrote before I bit the bullet and removed those "inactive" accounts. Now we have dropped a whole level.

This is an unfair penalty to guilds of all sizes because they lose a percentage of the renown that account previously earned which is significantly more than the actual value of that renown due to decay. If the renown loss from removing an account was calculated on the present worth of that earned renown (i.e. factored for the decay over the same period it was earned) then this wouldn't be a problem.

It totally agree on this. It is craazy to have to keep inactive characters in your guild forever, particularly when they count toward the guild size cap. I strongly recommend making the penalty for kicking them go away sooner. And it should not matter if they have characters in other guilds or on other servers that are still active. The only thing that should matter is that particular character's inactive time in the guild that is kicking it. Guilds have no way of knowing about what other alts the guy might have lurking about.

[Gremmlynn]

Perhaps the amount of renown items one account has to collect should be somewhat higher in small guilds to make system better for large guilds but should still be based on guild size and level. What I was trying to avoid by setting needed renown items per account to constant was that in the old system big guilds had to collect more renown items per account to cover the decay than small guilds. Also in the current system small guild renown decay / account values are too much higher than what large guilds have and I don't like that either.

Also that renown / player function I gave is just an example the idea around it is the important part.

The problem is that the idea around the renown/player function is what is bad. It would be fine if every player played with the same frequency as every other player, but they don't. This sort of system just makes it so guilds are best off down sizing to just their most active players in order to optimize their renown/player quotient. In other words, it makes it better to have a guild with 20 players in which all are on every day than a guild with 200 players in which 40 are on every day and the simple solution is simply to remove the 180 low earning casuals who lower your bonus and reap the rewards of high earnings with a high bonus with just the 20 actives.

It also stifles recruitment as adding anyone to the guild would likely, at best, just add less a smaller increase than the last than due to the decreased bonus and at worst lower your daily earnings if they didn't play as much as the rest.

[Hendrik]

Guilds 10 and below are not getting additional decay under the test system.

This is a really ridiculous argument. You could also argue if we go back to the old system nobody is hurt because they had the same decay as they did previously.

Decay is a penalty inflicted on members of a guild. The punitive decay aspect of the guild system should not be so out of line that a someone has a decay penalty 8x higher than they would if they were in a large guild. I offered a suggested approach to adjust this that doesn't hurt large gulids at all and gives a more even amount of decay relief to all guilds. I don't understand why people in large gulds are so against making the punitive aspect of the system fair when all you have to do is look around in the game and you will see so many small guilds under 60. Why do you want to keep them down?

Example:

L30 Guild, 8 Members;
OLD: 61 (3.375000 * 8+10)
NEW: 68 (3.375000 * 20)

L30 Guild, 6 Members;
OLD: 54 (3.375000 * 6+10)
NEW: 68 (3.375000 * 20)

L30 Guild, 5 Members;
OLD: 51 (3.375000 * 5+10)
NEW: 68 (3.375000 * 20)

Round up where necessary.


Care to show your math to backup your claims?

[Artos_Fabril]

Example:

L30 Guild, 8 Members;
OLD: 61 (3.375000 * 8+10)
NEW: 68 (3.375000 * 20)

L30 Guild, 6 Members;
OLD: 54 (3.375000 * 6+10)
NEW: 68 (3.375000 * 20)

L30 Guild, 5 Members;
OLD: 51 (3.375000 * 5+10)
NEW: 68 (3.375000 * 20)

Round up where necessary.


Care to show your math to backup your claims?

Your new and old values should be the same in every case here. The old formula was guild size (min 10) +10, so even a 1 person guild was being calculated as 20 members.